Those of you currently in optometry school, are you having a lot of difficulty?

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Optomchick

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basically i was slacking off and doing too many extracurriculars and working...i guess im wondering if other students at other schools experienced this their first year...Optometry school is WAY harder than undergrad :/

And what were you expecting?

Did you think it would be easier than undergrad?
 
basically i was slacking off and doing too many extracurriculars and working...i guess im wondering if other students at other schools experienced this their first year...Optometry school is WAY harder than undergrad :/

What "extracurricular" activities are you doing?? Are you in the Girl Scouts or something? :confused:

Try NOT slacking off, try LESS extracurriculars and try LESS working and see what happens.
 
I am first year too you have to study everyday and keep up. By everyday I MEAN STUDY EVERYDAY FOR SEVERAL HRS. Getting lot of As so far. There is no shortcut, hrs and hrs of studying is needed and UAB is known for having a very very rigorous curriculum.
 
why is it that in the optometry forum..people are always talking about doing extracurriculars and trying to hold down a job. Or the provost having to tell people "play time is over". that is ridiculous. This never happens on the medicine forum
 
Why do you think that has happened?

OptomChick, please inform us of your undergraduate science and cumulative GPA :) And you shall have your answer to the world.
 
Or the provost having to tell people "play time is over". that is ridiculous. This never happens on the medicine forum

I'm pretty sure the guy who said that is going to medical school...
 
also 2nd year is much harder than 1st year, so you need to put your head down and study. No more going to the malls and partying for you.
 
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OptomChick, please inform us of your undergraduate science and cumulative GPA :) And you shall have your answer to the world.

Hate to burst your bubble, but this was going to be my answer too. When your admissions stats were low to begin with, didnt that put a fire under your ass and maybe make you think that you should have to put in WAY more effort? If I were you, I wouldn't have joined a single club until I knew I could handle school first. Job...what job? I'd love to have money, but I eat basically one meal a day and drink coffee for the other two.

The days I have class from 8-4, the LAST thing I want is to come home and study for 4 more hours. I have a love-hate relationship with sleep. I can't sleep at night and I desperately want to nap between 4-7 pm. If I've had a full day, ill give myself an hour to nap and rally and then get in gear. This works most days, I'm not perfect. Some days I end up going out or whatever, but the net result is positive. It's impossible to study all he time and not live a little.

I don't know how your school works, but for us finals are a good hunk of it grades. If I were you I would quit the job and get some grad plus $ pronto. It's not worth failing out of school and attempting to pay back loans on a waitress salary. Make study groups and a google cal and plan out what you're going to study and when. Stick to it.
 
I thought the first semester was a piece... no a bite of cake compared to the rest. Sorry for the bad news :-( Time to get serious though. If you're only getting Cs and Ds passing school is going to be the least of your worries when it comes time to take boards because you probably haven't mastered the material well enough pass those.

Side-note: Does your school allow you to pass a class with a D??? That worries me a little bit. At my school the lowest you can get is a C+ (78%) in order to pass. Anything below and you find yourself taking another year of school and worse, paying another year of tuition.

Hope things improve for you!
 
I thought the first semester was a piece... no a bite of cake compared to the rest. Sorry for the bad news :-( Time to get serious though. If you're only getting Cs and Ds passing school is going to be the least of your worries when it comes time to take boards because you probably haven't mastered the material well enough pass those.

Side-note: Does your school allow you to pass a class with a D??? That worries me a little bit. At my school the lowest you can get is a C+ (78%) in order to pass. Anything below and you find yourself taking another year of school and worse, paying another year of tuition.

Hope things improve for you!

Agreed. Sorry for the bad news as well, but it's only your first semester. It gets a whole lot worse before it gets any better. So buckle down and prioritize. Get tutoring if needed, and stop the extracurriculars/working until you get your academics in order.
 
Agreed. Sorry for the bad news as well, but it's only your first semester. It gets a whole lot worse before it gets any better. So buckle down and prioritize. Get tutoring if needed, and stop the extracurriculars/working until you get your academics in order.

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I'm a second year student at WesternU. Head and Neck is the least of your worries for the shared courses. And now we are heavy into ocular disease, clinic, and many other courses. You have to be able to multi-task and assimilate information readily in a real patient setting, and at a very fast pace. We have a proficiency in slit lamp next week where we have to do the whole procedure in 6 minutes. Real life patient care is about knowing the right thing to do on a dime and executing it quickly so you don't spend two hours per patient; you can't make a living doing that. My point is you must know the material and know it quickly, and be able to execute at a fast pace effectively.
 
I'm a second year student at WesternU. Head and Neck is the least of your worries for the shared courses. And now we are heavy into ocular disease, clinic, and many other courses. You have to be able to multi-task and assimilate information readily in a real patient setting, and at a very fast pace. We have a proficiency in slit lamp next week where we have to do the whole procedure in 6 minutes. Real life patient care is about knowing the right thing to do on a dime and executing it quickly so you don't spend two hours per patient; you can't make a living doing that. My point is you must know the material and know it quickly, and be able to execute at a fast pace effectively.

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Do you know what WesternU's policy is on if you fail the boards? I heard DO schools kick you out if you fail 3 times...

Don't worry about any of that.....that doesn't matter right now. Just focus on what is right in front of you.

You've taken the right first step by leaving the job and the "other activities" (whatever those were) behind.

Attend every class and pay attention if don't already Dont' be one of those people who sleeps in and tries to study the book or the transcript notes. Don't be goofing off on your cellphone or your laptop. Attendance is the first major key. I do not know if studies have been done on professional schools but the number one predictor of success in both high school and college is not your GPA, your SAT scores, your IQ, if you go to a "good" school or a "bad" school or how much money your parents make or any of that.....

It is your attendance record.

There are other people on here suggesting you have to study for hours and hours a night. Perhaps you are one of those people who do actually need to do that but I never foud that to be the case for me and I can't say that I was the strongest student in history.

I believe that the most important thing is not that you study for hours and hours, but that you study for at least "some time" each and every day. Personally, I found that once I got past the 90 minute mark or the 2 hour mark, my ability to retain or process information went way down. So for me, studying four hours gave me no more knowledgethan studying for two. For me, I had to do some every day. My roomate however had the ability to study less days but for longer periods of time.

Cramming however is not going to get it done. You will not be able to pull that off like you sometimes can in undergraduate.

You've taken the right first step. Put the past behind you and just focus on what is right in front of you, not board exams or things like that.
 
No I don't. The thought of not passing the boards at most the second time hasn't crossed my mind.
I have a question for others though, if you pass part 1 and 2 but do not pass part 3, do you have to retake all 3 parts or only the 3rd part?
 
No I don't. The thought of not passing the boards at most the second time hasn't crossed my mind.
I have a question for others though, if you pass part 1 and 2 but do not pass part 3, do you have to retake all 3 parts or only the 3rd part?

You register for each part individually.
In fact, for Part III, there's now even a subsection for injections that you can retake on its own (but is not mandatory to pass if you practice in a state that doesn't require it)
 
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Don't worry about any of that.....that doesn't matter right now. Just focus on what is right in front of you.

You've taken the right first step by leaving the job and the "other activities" (whatever those were) behind.

Attend every class and pay attention if don't already Dont' be one of those people who sleeps in and tries to study the book or the transcript notes. Don't be goofing off on your cellphone or your laptop. Attendance is the first major key. I do not know if studies have been done on professional schools but the number one predictor of success in both high school and college is not your GPA, your SAT scores, your IQ, if you go to a "good" school or a "bad" school or how much money your parents make or any of that.....

It is your attendance record.

There are other people on here suggesting you have to study for hours and hours a night. Perhaps you are one of those people who do actually need to do that but I never foud that to be the case for me and I can't say that I was the strongest student in history.

I believe that the most important thing is not that you study for hours and hours, but that you study for at least "some time" each and every day. Personally, I found that once I got past the 90 minute mark or the 2 hour mark, my ability to retain or process information went way down. So for me, studying four hours gave me no more knowledgethan studying for two. For me, I had to do some every day. My roomate however had the ability to study less days but for longer periods of time.

Cramming however is not going to get it done. You will not be able to pull that off like you sometimes can in undergraduate.

You've taken the right first step. Put the past behind you and just focus on what is right in front of you, not board exams or things like that.
 
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We have a lot of new technology so everything is video recorded in high quality (watching the videos is even clearer than being in lecture)...so I've watched all the videos! And there is no attendance taken. Thanks for the advice, hopefully the grades will go up next semester.

The echo recordings are great if you're sick or have another obligation and miss a lecture. But I've only missed two lectures in person this semester, and one of them failed to record properly. The recordings don't always work. Also, they always take longer for me to watch than being in lecture because I keep pausing them to catch up on notes. The recordings also do not film what the professor is doing, any demonstrations, and so on, only the powerpoint projection screen and the audio. I made the mistake last year of relying on the recordings for about half of the MCBM course, because there was just so much material, and that ended up being my only B for last year, messing up a 4.0 gpa for me. I think attending class is better overall.
 
I thought optometry school was awful until fourth year.
 
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The echo recordings are great if you're sick or have another obligation and miss a lecture. But I've only missed two lectures in person this semester, and one of them failed to record properly. The recordings don't always work. Also, they always take longer for me to watch than being in lecture because I keep pausing them to catch up on notes. The recordings also do not film what the professor is doing, any demonstrations, and so on, only the powerpoint projection screen and the audio. I made the mistake last year of relying on the recordings for about half of the MCBM course, because there was just so much material, and that ended up being my only B for last year, messing up a 4.0 gpa for me. I think attending class is better overall.
 
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Right, but even if it takes longer, at least you can pause to take notes. I can see the professor in the video. IDK it's what you prefer I guess, I don't see the harm in it, unless of course it doesn't work, which it always has so far.

If you have a question, you can't raise your hand to ask said question to a recording. I wish we had this offered (we don't seeing as we have this "mandatory attendance" crap) but I still go to all my classes unless I'm not feeling well. I would use it more of a secondary resource instead of an excuse to not go to class.
 
If you have a question, you can't raise your hand to ask said question to a recording. I wish we had this offered (we don't seeing as we have this "mandatory attendance" crap) but I still go to all my classes unless I'm not feeling well. I would use it more of a secondary resource instead of an excuse to not go to class.
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The hardest classes seem like the inter-disciplinary ones with the med school students so hopefully since most of those are ending this year, next year will be easier. It also looks like more physics and less bio and I got an A in physics this semester....

any stories of anyone doing horribly their first year and then improving their second or third year?

Well 400 person classes are going to suck no matter which way you spin if. We have anatomy with dental but they are 120 and were 100 so that's 220 max. Still my best advice is camp out in the lib in study groups. Get a little room with a white board and talk it out. If you don't know something, the chances of 4 other people not knowing it are low. If you study alone you hit a wall and are basically stuck googling or paging through notes which takes 5x as long.
 
You register for each part individually.
In fact, for Part III, there's now even a subsection for injections that you can retake on its own (but is not mandatory to pass if you practice in a state that doesn't require it)

Correct me if I am wrong but I think that was for last year's Part 3? Everything I have read said that it is part of the score now for all of us taking Part 3 this year.
 
We have a lot of new technology so everything is video recorded in high quality (watching the videos is even clearer than being in lecture)...so I've watched all the videos! And there is no attendance taken. Thanks for the advice, hopefully the grades will go up next semester.

Don't say "hopefully the grades will go up next semester." That implies you have no control over the situation and it's like saying "hopefully it won't rain on Thursday."

Think to yourself "my grades WILL go up next semester because I plan to......."
 
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I'm in my first year and I'm not doing well...I've gotten a D and a couple C's...has anyone else experienced this? Did your grades improve after the first year?

I've been in that boat before. You have to find out what works best for you. Some people found it better to go to class and follow along, some found it better to study scribed notes and old tests in the library while class was going on, some people are just really good test takers and sucked at clinic, vice versa.

Find your groove and go with it. But I do have to agree that often enough its a shock to those used to the undergrad routine. Opt school is much more intense and so it definitely has to be treated as such. Good luck! :xf:
 
I've been in that boat before. You have to find out what works best for you. Some people found it better to go to class and follow along, some found it better to study scribed notes and old tests in the library while class was going on, some people are just really good test takers and sucked at clinic, vice versa.

Find your groove and go with it. But I do have to agree that often enough its a shock to those used to the undergrad routine. Opt school is much more intense and so it definitely has to be treated as such. Good luck! :xf:

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I'm doing fairly well, but that doesn't mean that I don't question whether or not this work is worth the reward.
 
I feel like in Oregon or Penn there isn't as many distractions, there's so many things to do around the LA area and so many clubs at WesternU to be involved in that it really gets frustrating having to constantly turn down things to study instead.

I'm in Fort Lauderdale/Miami and have gone to the beach and out to the major clubs several times this semester and I still have all As and 2 Bs as of now. It can be done, it takes discipline, sacrifice and focus.
 
I feel like in Oregon or Penn there isn't as many distractions, there's so many things to do around the LA area and so many clubs at WesternU to be involved in that it really gets frustrating having to constantly turn down things to study instead.

Actually in Oregon, the school makes it mandatory that you spend all of your time away from studying logging the hillsides and collecting the perpetual rainfall to build fences and moats to keep the folks from LA out of the state, and that's a pretty big distraction. :)

Seriously, find out what works for you in terms of studying to get good grades and stick with it no matter what it takes or what you have to sacrifice. You are spending WAY too much money not to.

When I was in OD school I had to relearn how to study, because skiing and hiking all day, and cramming wasn't working like it did in undergrad. I had to bust myself and sacrifice a ton of fun stuff to study properly to get my B's. It's worth it, just keep to it and let loose after finals.

PS: Portland is a fantastic city and there are plenty of distractions.
 
I'm in my first year and I'm not doing well...I've gotten a D and a couple C's...has anyone else experienced this? Did your grades improve after the first year?

I'll side-step the mound of dick responses this post has generated..., and offer my reply:

Consider taking advantage of tutoring services your school might have available, as well as of its counseling center, if one is present. If you've performed poorly in one subject/area, tutoring may help you work through your difficulties with the topic. If you feel you are performing poorly in general because of weak study habits, difficulty organizing yourself, etc., your counselor might try to guide you to better orienting yourself to managing the curriculum.

Best of luck.
 
i'd only consider dropping out if....... I did not like what i was learning about optometery and aI decided it was not what I wanted to do in life. the adjustment from UG is not supposed to be easy - and truly is anything worth doing easy?
Do your best, find the best way to retain for the test ( flash cards/study group/ repetition /tutor ) and buckle up, you'll need to retrieve what you know for boards in a couple of years. Then a lot of the stuff you won't have to know again immediately - just be able to find and apply it.
Maybe shadowing an OD for a couple of hours may rejuvenate your perspective on why you chose optometry.

hope you stick with it!:luck:;)
 
IDK it's not really study habits or not understanding the material, it's more like I just can't memorize the large amount of material in such a short time frame.

...I'm actually considering dropping out...I'm even doing poorly in the "easy" classes :(


How many hrs are you studying every day on avg.? memorizing is all repetition just keep reading your notes over and over.
 
IDK it's not really study habits or not understanding the material, it's more like I just can't memorize the large amount of material in such a short time frame.

...I'm actually considering dropping out...I'm even doing poorly in the "easy" classes :(

I think you ought to drop out if you no longer wish to enter the profession, not because your education has gotten off to a rocky start. Your problem, from what you say, seems to be in figuring how to manage the coursework. My advice would be to talk with academic counseling services available at your school, as well as perhaps to upper-class mentors or tutors, if such programs exist — tap the resources for which you've already paid, before deciding whether to pack your bags and leave town.
 
maybe you're just a super smarty pants-- what are you doing in OD school?? jk jk (that last part was for jason k)

Lot of students find time to do other stuff and still get good grades. I bet your problem is that you are not studying the material that is most important and will be asked on the exam. That is the key knowing what to study, there is just too much material to memorize everything.
 
I think you ought to drop out if you no longer wish to enter the profession, not because your education has gotten off to a rocky start. Your problem, from what you say, seems to be in figuring how to manage the coursework. My advice would be to talk with academic counseling services available at your school, as well as perhaps to upper-class mentors or tutors, if such programs exist — tap the resources for which you've already paid, before deciding whether to pack your bags and leave town.

This was going to be my advice, seeking academic counseling from the dean or whatever. At our school, anything lower than a 70 is considered failing and you have to pass a cumulative retake final exam to pass the class (with a transcript denotation) otherwise you have to repeat the year.

My study method has always been to "think like the professor". They normally get 40-50 questions if they are MC format or even if they aren't, but they generally aren't *******s and won't test on nitpicky details. So focus on major concepts of everything first before you take it a step deeper and do details. If you have time, sweat the small stuff. It's not worth obsessing over since the likelihood of it being tested are so small.
 
This was going to be my advice, seeking academic counseling from the dean or whatever. At our school, anything lower than a 70 is considered failing and you have to pass a cumulative retake final exam to pass the class (with a transcript denotation) otherwise you have to repeat the year.

My study method has always been to "think like the professor". They normally get 40-50 questions if they are MC format or even if they aren't, but they generally aren't *******s and won't test on nitpicky details. So focus on major concepts of everything first before you take it a step deeper and do details. If you have time, sweat the small stuff. It's not worth obsessing over since the likelihood of it being tested are so small.

.
 
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We're not even allowed to retake courses by retaking a test. I got a 67% instead of a 70% on my last final and I'm pretty sure my professor isn't going to be nice and will say I failed the whole class because apparently in her syllabus, even if you get a 75% overall, you have to get at least a 70% on each exam. It's bull**** like this that just makes me think that this school (or profession) isn't for me.

Well if the policy is explicitly stated up front, you really can't argue with them. While I don't agree with that, it's there in black and white, not like they made it up on the spot to spite you like "hahaha...we're going to fail this girl". I would still speak to the professor individually and see what he/she says.
 
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